Computer \"reads\" memories... (Humans)

by dhw, Tuesday, March 30, 2010, 15:08 (5351 days ago) @ BBella

BBella asked for my ideal "ultimate truth", and I said that it would be coloured by my consciousness of the terrible suffering here on Earth. There's been a major misunderstanding over this, perhaps best summed up by your comment:
"Your UT is right in line with mine...except I would have suffering in my UT. Sadly, because we already have suffering, it cannot be placed into a closet and forgotten."-I've taken suffering on Earth as a given truth that can't be changed, not an "ultimate" truth, and the rest of my post is built on what I see as an explanation and an ideal compensation ... i.e. an afterlife in which suffering has been eliminated. I'm not going to pretend that I've thought this through down to its last detail, but I think I can answer the questions you've posed about suffering and about the body.-I see suffering as an inevitable result of the randomness and physicality of our life here. That will continue. We can do nothing about it. That is how physical life (which entails the battle for survival) works. Whoever lives through it will of course remember it ... memory is part of our identity, and in my ideal universe, our bodiless selves will still be us, and what we have learned from life on Earth will remain with us. I agree entirely with you that our suffering enables us to appreciate the good things all the more (a fertile approach to the subject of good and evil), and it will have helped to fashion us, but we will have left it behind us. In my ideal afterlife, then, all the causes of suffering will have been removed. That's why I said that there would be no body (the cause of much suffering, as you know only too well), no hierarchy, no competition, and the list could go on and on: no money, no territory, no power, no greed, no lust ... not banished by magic, but by the fact that this new life has no need for any of these things. There is no battle for survival or power or wealth, and no exposure to the inevitable physical disasters and illnesses that plague our bodies. Maybe it's akin to the Buddhist Nirvana. Your idea of rest periods and of the voluntary choice to return to Earth in one form or another appeals to me as a possible refuge from boredom. Perhaps this should also entail the voluntary eradication of our past. I'd have to think about that when/if the time came. Your hologram might serve the same function, since it feels real ... but in that case, why not go for the real thing on Earth? Of course, our life here may also seem like a hologram once it's over, just as our own past sometimes feels like someone else's dream.-Matt's ideal UT that he would become God may help to explain why my ideal UT would be that there is no God! Despite my great respect and admiration and affection for my fellow truth-seeker, I don't want to be under the authority of any being subject to the same flaws and weaknesses as myself. Nor would I wish to wield such authority. You may argue that since I have the choice here, I can choose to have a God who is perfect according to my own concept of perfection. But my own concept entails a universe in which life goes on indefinitely in its earthly way (a given, unavoidable present truth) and in its unearthly way (ultimate truth, as described here and in my first post), and so there is absolutely no need for a God.
 
You've set us off on an interesting path, because clearly our ideal UT reflects much of our thinking about life in general. I'll stop here, but I suspect you'll be probing further!